Tuesday, February 15, 2011

UK Cycling PSA - Bank Job

Quite a long time ago I posted this Awareness Test, a PSA from Transport for London that I thought was pretty cool. Well, today I ran across some more spots from the same people, the video below among them. I really like these PSAs because they are effective and fun without resorting to the shock tactics that can really put people off.

I like this one almost as much as the awareness test. There are more clips that are pretty good too and they can all be found here.

A final note: don't read the comments on the video's youtube page. It will just make you think the planet is stuffed full of chronically stupid people if you didn't think it already. Why is it that morons are to comment sections as moths are to flames? Please comment in the section below.

The filmmaker took a short cut to emphasize the arrival of the cyclist through the driver's side window - if people are coming away from watching this thinking the car is moving away from the cyclist's path and the cyclist is somehow incompetant then it's the filmmaker who is the moron, so don't feel bad.

The driver parks parallel to the road. The cyclist is seen in the driver's coming down the road (that the getaway car is parked on)directly parallel to the direction the car is headed in. And yet, in the next shot the driver inexplicably reverses (bringing the rapidly closing cyclist briefly into view before the implied collision); the car was placed in that final shot at an angle to the road purely as a contrivance to make the arrival of the cyclist more dramatic.

Without having read the YouTube comments, I can only guess that rather than analyzing the technique of the filmmaker people are seeing the incompetance of the cyclist - because the more you look for something the bigger it seems. Surely an unintentional effect and I hope whoever suggested setting up that last shot that way reads the comments and feels really bad.